ECE News Story

UMD Accepted to DOE’s 2017 Solar Decathlon Competition

UMD Accepted to DOE’s 2017 Solar Decathlon Competition

A group of University of Maryland students, faculty and mentors has been named one of the 16 collegiate teams selected to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2017 Solar Decathlon. Our Terps team will combine the efforts of students from a variety of disciplines across the University of Maryland campus, including architecture, engineering, environmental science and technology, plant sciences, and numerous others. For the first time in the competition’s history, the winning team will be awarded $2 million in prize money.

The team’s PIs are Professor Raymond Adomaitis of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research along with Professor Garth Rockcastle and lecturer Michael Binder of the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

This year will be the fifth time a Terp team has been selected to compete to build a house that is fully and creatively powered by solar energy. Maryland's WaterShed entry took first place in the competition in 2011 and was lauded for its focus on water conservation as well as energy efficiency and architectural design.

The 16 teams from across the United States will soon start the nearly two-year process of building solar-powered houses that are affordable, innovative, and highly energy-efficient. The elite international competition will take place in mid-2017; the location has yet to be announced.